As well as presenting a phenomenal Keynote Speech, Pat Grant also sketched throughout the day of the conference, creating a mosaic out of moments, themes and topics. We recorded various presentations from Inkers and Thinkers 2015, and have embedded them in the posts below, as well as publishing the original abstracts. Please listen and enjoy!

Modern Turkish culture has had an ambivalent relationship with the LGBTQ community. Despite the ever-growing presence of LGBTQ groups who engage in crowded public activities, same-sex relationships and queer lifestyles are still seen as taboo subjects by a large percentage of the population, and often lead to life threatening situations. On the other hand, two of the most respected singers the country has seen, Zeki Müren and Bülent Ersoy, are a drag queen and a trans woman respectively. Comics and cartoons have long engaged with LGBTQ themes in Turkey, particularly in the pages of weekly humour magazines. While these publications – a significant presence in print media in the country – are often discussed as bearing a progressive, subversive and left-wing attitude, their portrayal of LGBTQ figures have been, for the most part, resonant with common public discourses of prejudice and ridicule.

This paper presents a survey of common trends towards the LGBTQ community in cartoons and comics in Turkey since the 1950s, during which time male politicians were caricaturised as women to be emasculated and stripped of their political power in the public eye. Works that ridicule gay men and trans women in stereotypical depictions in the 1980s and 1990s will be under critical scrutiny. A few comics series, which present alternative perspectives to LGBTQ themes, and issues of gender and sexuality will be highlighted. These include Travesti Sevgilim (My Transvestite Lover) by Nuri Kurtcebe, and Eylül by Rewhat, both of which feature trans women as their protagonists. The paper will emphasise the lack of self-representation and autobiographical works by LGBTQ artists in Turkey, and argue that even the most seemingly progressive comics with LGBTQ lead characters betray homophobic tendencies upon close reading.

In the late 1800s Irish efforts to gain autonomy from Britain were gathering pace. Undermining these endeavours were cartoons in satirical magazines like Punch that depicted Irish people as “Paddy the peasant” – a foolish and combative type ill-suited to home rule. As part of a wider move towards cultural nationalism, Irish playwrights, poets, and musicians challenged these stereotypes, but there were few cartoons and comics from Irish creators. Moving into the 20th century depictions of Ireland in comics continued to be dominated by international creators who often perpetuated long-standing prejudices. However, in the late 1980s Irish creators, such as Garth Ennis (Troubled Souls, Preacher, and Judge Dredd), used their position within the mainstream comic book industry to subvert these stereotypes.

In recent years Ireland has enjoyed its first sustained period of local comic production. These stories have been told in a variety of styles and genres including: historical graphic novels (Blood on the Rose: Easter 1916: The Rebellion That Set Ireland Free), mythological action (Celtic Warrior: The Legend of Cú Chulainn), Superhero (The League of Volunteers), Supernatural Mystery (Jennifer Wilde), and even Irish-language comics like Rírá. Despite the diversity of the titles, these Irish comics are united in their efforts to challenge received views and misconceptions about Ireland.

This paper will explore how Irish people have historically been depicted in comics and graphic novels. It will examine early attempts to challenge these views, such as Garth Ennis’ Emerald Isle. The paper will then chart the emergence of a local industry post-2000, and identify how these indigenous comics offer a potent alternative to the traditional representations of Ireland found in comics.

Comics has historically been considered an art of time. Narrative depends upon events arranged in some sequence, and comics is a narrative medium. Yet more than ‘sequential art’, after Eisner’s definition, comics is the narrative medium perhaps best-suited for radically departing from the sequence. This can mean nonlinear temporal progressions, but can also mean narratives that foreground space. This paper will explore the methods employed by three present-day American artists who have used the medium of comics to explore space, privileging these three dimensions over the dimension of time. Blaise Larmee’s work engages the medial limits of comics, transposing comics from digital publishing formats to print formats and back again; Jimenez Lai is an architect who employs the comics medium to explore theoretical, experimental architectural forms; and Chris Forgues (CF) has employed an unusual kind of grid to dislodge the reader’s sense of both space and time, in an attempt to ‘make nothing happen’ – to show stasis, or stillness. All three artists explore, foreground, and problematise the dimensional properties of comics. Moreover, as engagements with space and time are the defining properties of different narrative media, I argue that all three artists produce metanarratives, commenting not only on comics, but on narrative itself. Through close-reading these artists’ works, and applying techniques adapted from text-based narratology, this paper argues that comics can be an art of time, but is also expressly suited to explore ideas of space. In doing so, comics is a radical narrative medium. Departing less from sequential time than from time itself, comics forces us to ask whether narrative can exist without it.

Introduction: At the turn of the century, Scott McCloud made a series of dramatic predictions about webcomics in his second theoretic work Reinventing Comics (2000). Playing a role similar to that of a millennial prophet, McCloud announced that the Internetʼs ʻinfinite canvasʼ would allow webcomics to be free from the restraints of the print format and mainstream corporations. This would result in alternative examples of artistic content and form and almost exponential sales through digital delivery. One year later, comics journalist Gary Groth wrote a rebuttal titled “McCloud CuckooLand”, arguing that webcomics would be beholden to hosting costs and the advertising of telecommunications corporations. The question remains: which of McCloud or Grothʼs predictions about webcomics have come to pass over the last 15 years?

Methods: The methods used to address this question have been investigation and analysis of contemporary webcomics, considering the alternative nature of their content, form and delivery. McCloudʼs own reflections on this debate have been taken into consideration, as well the conclusions of the ongoing research into webcomics.

Results: 15 years after McCloudʼs intial predictions, some have indeed utilised the ʻinfinite canvasʼ concept (The Prince and the Sea and McCloudʼs own Zot! Online). However, some of Grothʼs predictions also have some legitimacy with services like DC Entertainment Digital Comics and Marvelʼs Digital Comics Unlimited available on the Amazon-owned Comixology platform (even if this subscription model has also been used by indie start-ups like Thrillbent and MonkeyBrain Comics). Popular independent webcomics like Ctrl+Alt+Del, Penny Arcade, 8-Bit Theater, Girls with Slingshots and Goats deal in culture, identity and satire, with some commentators concluding that these works are simply the online continuation of the Underground Comix tradition. However, other popular independent webcomics like Lady Sabre and Cura Te Ipsum publish mainstream genre stories with alternate business models.

Conclusions and predictions: With approximately 10,000 webcomics online, neither McCloud nor Grothʼs alternate realities have come to pass. Instead, webcomics can be corporate, indie, mainstream and alternative across the spectrum. In fact, webcomics have appeared online with content, forms and sales suspiciously similar to the traditional comics milieu. However, with Amazonʼs purchase of Comixology, new questions arise regarding the possibilities of reading devices and also a further consolidation of corporate power

Comics scholar Jens Balzer has stated that in reading comics, ‘the gaze of the beholder must arrive at a mode of distraction’ in order to negotiate the various tensions at work in the medium. In this ‘mode,’ the eye is set in perpetual motion, continually seeking out alternative focal points, enacting the animation implied by the juxtaposition of static elements. According to Balzer, this ‘distracted gaze’ – typified early on in the crowd scenes of R.F. Outcault’s Hogan’s Alley – teaches the beholder an alternative, mimetic approach to participating in the constant motion of modernity, one that both sidesteps and caricatures this motion in the manner of a flâneur, or a Situationist dérive. In other words, comics show the reader that they are not passive spectators, that they can manipulate the spectacle of modernity, and interpret it in a variety of ways according to their subjective experience. Using this argument as a starting point, I will examine how certain comics after Hogan’s Alley play to this ‘distracted gaze’ through anti-sequentiality and the accumulation of peripheral details that reveal themselves on re-reading. This will demonstrate the formal and conceptual significance of marginality and the periphery in comics, how this discourages interpretive stagnation and mirrors what Balzer sees as the transience of modernity. Specifically, I will be looking at the copycat Yellow Kid strips created by George Luks in the 1890s, George Carlson’s Jingle Jangle stories from the 1940s, the ‘chicken fat’ aesthetic of Mad in the 1950s, and the echo of Outcault’s crowd scenes in Jordan Speer’s recent QCHQ.

This year’s Inkers and Thinkers symposium is packed full of great presentations and workshops that will expand your understanding of what comics are and what they can do. Grab your tickets and join us on May 15 and 16, 2015 for Australasia’s largest event dedicated to the study of comics!

When: Friday, May 15 & Saturday, May 16

Where: Inkers and Thinkers 2015 will be held on the University of Adelaide’s North Terrace campus, in the heart of Adelaide’s CBD.

What: A lively and intelligent discussion into the world of comics and narrative art!

We have partnered with the fine folks at Austin & Austin, Bar 9 to offer some great food and drink specials during both days of the symposium, and Pulp Fiction Comics will be providing symposium attendees with some exclusive deals on awesome comics.

This will be a fantastic two days, but tickets are limited and selling fast. Make sure you visit our ticketing site to reserve your spot for two excellent days of comic book discussion and fun. We look forward to seeing you there!

We are pleased to announce that the winners of our Building Stories competition are Michael Roder and Ryan Morrison. Congratulations and thank you for supporting Inkers and Thinkers 2015! Your copies of Building Stories will be given to you when you register on Friday.

We would also like to announce that because the response to our firstBuilding Stories competition was so good we have decided to run a second competition for all of our pre-sale Inkers and Thinkers attendees. This time we have two great prize packs up for grabs. Firstly, we have another copy of Chris Ware’s masterful Building Stories to give away. This is truly a fantastic book that is a worthy addition to any reader’s library or the perfect gift for the book-lover in your life.

The second prize pack features two lovely hardcover books, Supergods: Our World in the Age of the Superhero by Grant Morrison and A Comics Studies Reader edited by Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, that we hope will sate your thirst for compelling and insightful scholarship on the comic book medium after listening to our wonderful and talented presenters. Grant Morrison is an Eisner-award winning comic book writer known for his work on All-Star Superman, Multiversity, and New X-Men as well as the creator-owned projects We3 and Joe The Barbarian. In Supergods Morrison performs a psycho-historic mapping of the superhero as a cultural organism, presenting heroes as not simply characters but powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence. Jeet Heer’s and Kent Worcester’s A Comics Studies Reader provides nearly thirty essays from academics across the globe on a wide variety of comic forms – such as gag cartoons, editorial cartoons, comic strips, comic books, manga, and graphic novels. The book features analysis of the works of Art Spiegelman and Chris Ware as well as discussions on the formal properties of different comic forms. The book is a great introduction to many of the key debates and authors who have and will continue to shape the field of comic book studies. These books retail for an average of AUD$30 and AUD$78, respectively, and they could both be yours!

Remember this competition is only open to attendees who have pre-booked a ticket to either day of Inkers and Thinkers. Everyone who has already purchased their pre-sale ticket to either day of Inkers and Thinkers has already been entered into the competition. If you haven’t already purchased your ticket don’t worry because there is still time! Just make sure you visit our ticketing site and purchase your ticket before 9:00pm Thursday May 14th and you’ll be entered into the competition. The first drawing will be for Building Stories and the seconding drawing for Supergods and A Comics Studies Reader. We will draw the winners for both prizes on Friday morning so you can collect your prizes at the event, but again don’t buy tickets just for the fabulous prizes, buy them because you want to attend Australasia’s biggest and best academic comics conference. With a full day of seminar presentations on Friday and hands-on workshops on Saturday, and featuring award-winning cartoonist Pat Grant, you will learn an incredible amount about visual expression, graphic storytelling and sequential art. We look forward to seeing you at Inkers and Thinkers 2015 for a great day of comics!

Please Note: Entries are limited to one per person. Buying a ticket to both days does not grant two entries. If you have purchased multiple tickets for you and a friend please contact us via Facebook or at inkersandthinkers[at]gmail.com by 9:00pm Thursday to let us know the names of your other guests. Winners of the first competition, Michael Roder and Ryan Morrison, will not be re-entered into this competition. The winner of the first drawing will not be re-entered for the second drawing.

The North Terrace Campus is on the corner of North Tce and Pulteney St. You can simply walk into the campus, and there are maps which show you the different buildings on site. The symposium will be held in the IRA RAYMOND ROOM in the BARR SMITH LIBRARY and the SANTOS THEATRE in the MARJORIBANKS BUILDING.

THE IRA RAYMOND EXHIBITION ROOM (CONFERENCE VENUE): The Ira Raymond Room is on the 3RD FLOOR OF THE BARR SMITH LIBRARY. You can enter via the Hub and take the stairs, or you can enter via the library walkway, which is located near BARR SMITH NORTH. (The walkway entrance is marked with a small orange triangle in the pdf below).

THE SANTOS THEATRE (WORKSHOPS VENUE): The Santos Theatre is located at ROOM 126 on the first floor of the MARJORIBANKS BUILDING. The Marjoribanks Building is directly opposite the main campus, located on the left hand corner of Pulteney Street and North Terrace, on the Pulteney Street side. It is connected to Nexus 10 (The Faculty of Professions), and is just down the road from Target Central.

There is a full pdf of the North Terrace Campus Map HERE. This map includes car parks, bike racks, toilets, security, parenting rooms, information services, and disability access. An ATM is located in the Hub Building. The University is located next to the Royal Adelaide Hospital if you are in need of medical assistance, and there are many buses which stop outside the University. This link will take you to the Adelaide Metro site, so if you need you can plan your journey.

PULP FICTION COMICS

Pulp Fiction Comics is located at 34A KING WILLIAM STREET. They are open 9am – 9pm on Fridays, and 9am – 5pm on Saturdays. Their website, including contact details for mail ordering and shipping, is here.

BAR 9 – BOUTIQUE COFFEE SPECIALISTS

The CBD location for Bar 9 is the DAVID JONES CENTRAL PLAZA, which can be accessed via North Terrace or Rundle Mall. They are located next to the Food Court on the basement level. They are open 8.30am – 8pm on Friday, and 9.30am – 4pm on Saturday. Please note that the Inkers and Thinkers offer is only available at the CBD store.

AUSTIN & AUSTIN

Austin & Austin is located at 28 AUSTIN STREET, a small laneway that is very close to campus. They are open from 12pm to 2am on Saturday, and as well as drinks they serve small meals.

If you have any questions please email inkersandthinkers@gmail.com, or speak to one of our friendly organisers on the day!

Among recent graphic novels, Chris Ware’s Building Stories stands out as a real triumph. It’s a boxed set of books, mini-comics, fold-outs and other styles of publications that all link together to tell one story. By turns both heart-warming and heart-retching, it’s a dazzlingly inventive example of how powerful comics can be. Naturally, it’s one of our favourite books here at Inkers and Thinkers HQ, and we are fortunate enough to have some brand new copies to give away!